Pages

Saturday, 15 July 2017

Trained Askari

Work continues apace here at Awdry Towers with regards to the assembly of forces required for our forthcoming game of 'Congo'. The latest troops off the production line are the Askaris and mine have come from 'Copplestone Castings', now available through 'North Star Military Figures'.

These have wonderfully characterful faces and the rest of the sculpts are refreshingly simple with just the right amount of detail to work with. Mine will make up the ranks of a White Man Expedition force, which has a particularly British feel to it at present and I thought that the khaki uniform might help to further unify them.

There is an option to either field Trained Askari, armed with rifles or regular Askari, with muskets. Clearly there is a difference in value and range of weapon and I shall need to think about the balance of the column before I decide which variant I will use. Not sure that there is any historical accuracy in the red caps, but they stir fond memories of all those adventure films I remember from my youth.

Very good indeed! Regarding that last remark of the make-up of your force: I have the book by Chris Peers (not the rulebook the backgroundbook) about all the little wars in Africa and it has all sorts of info on fighting tactics of all the African nations as well as the response of the Europeans to them. I am now reading the chapter on the Azande and there wa a British chap in charge of a force of Egyptian troops of whom 1/3rd were armed with snider rifles and the rest with muskets. He placed the sniders in front and at the back of the column.